Alicia's Rhapsody
by Hardluck Joesephine
Summary: This is from the episode Ganymede Elegy. Jet and Alicia appear. The story is Alicia's POV. Cowboy bebop is of course copyrighted by Shinichiro Watanabe and Sunrise.


I watched the sun rise today from the porch of my business. My bar. As the yellow and red light broke across the sky, I never expected this day to bring the winds of my past blowing through these doors. I thought I managed to lock that one for good, but in a way, I was glad to have it happen.

I never expected the Black Dog to come back to my place, but then I thought of the Bounty on my boyfriend. No, Jet wouldn't be here for that. I couldn't see him as a bounty hunter, a cowboy… He was an ISSP detective, proud and strong. At least, that's how I like to remember him. The big protective type. Jet Black the famous "Black Dog" turned bounty hunter, just waltz through my doors after seven years of nothing.

But I was wrong again. He hadn't come here for the bounty originally. I believe. He never got the chance to have closure from our relationship, so I don't doubt he used the bounty as an excuse. That I will never know for sure. Seeing as how he never told me if he did or not. He also caught him, my bounty, the boyfriend. But that was after everything else. After our talk in my bar and the water boat chase.

Jet took a seat and asked for a drink. The same drink he loved from the past. I smiled and actually enjoyed his company for the moment. We had a bit of idle chit chat, until. Oh until he pulled out that old broken watch. I looked at it for a moment in shock. I figured that when it broke that day, he would have thrown it away. Jet Black never seemed to be the sentimental type before. At least when I knew him he wasn't.

As Jet pulled out that pocket watch and I felt a clench in my throat too. All my memories flooded back and left just as quickly. It was as swift as a camera flash. A fairy tale I lived a long time ago in a paradise far far away.

I picked up the watch and it seemed all too real, like life before was just a dream. Like the whole day was a dream. Jet Black, the man from my past, walking back through my doors must have been a dream. Nope, wrong again. Jet spoke and began to say everything he never got a chance to say. He told me of what happened when he came home and found the note saying one word. The word good bye. Seven years keeping all this to himself. I sat with my back turned to him listening intensely. Every vowel and syllable, I heard perfectly even though it seemed as if I wasn't really there.

The feeling of sadness gripped tight around me. I wanted to cry, I tried to cry, but I couldn't muster it up. Then he asked me Why. He said "Why Alicia? Why did you run away all those years ago?"

I knew the answer. I told him the real answer as I stood with him in a show down, my gun barrel shaking at his huge chest. But at that moment when he asked me why, my mind went blank. I didn't have a reason right then. I couldn't even think. I didn't look him in the eyes either. My own eyes felt red hot. I could barely breathe…

My past came rushing back at me. Every tender moment, every dinner, every flower, every night when he came home, everything. It overwhelmed me and drowned me in the feeling of love. I remembered why I loved him, and forgotten why I had left. But that was only for a few hours. Still having my back turned to Jet, I gave a useless and pointless explanation of something. I couldn't answer why I had left seven years ago in that moment. I revealed in the past and then said something irrelevant. Then, Adieu.

I just got up, walked to my back door, and said good bye to my past again. Excuse me, run from my past again. I thought I had, in my own pathetic way, bid my memories a fond farewell. I believed I had locked the door to my restaurant for the very last time. But in all actuality I said good bye to my past genuinely, while trying to kill Jet. And after my lover was arrested I reopened my bar to wait for his swift return from jail.

I did feel immensely better after I screamed the real answer why I left at Jet. I never shut the door on my past completely from then on. I liked to remember the good days and forget the bad. I remembered the lessons I learned also. I really lived after that day. And to this day, I haven't regretted a thing in my life. I thank Jet for at least showing me that…


End file.
